AT LAST, I COULD BREATHE | billy hargrove

to the rescue.

chapter's song: Kickstart My Heart - Motley Crue

to the rescue.

"Wait, so you're telling me there's a gate to the Upside Down that's open in Hawkins?" I asked the kids, horrified.

"Yep, at the lab," Dustin answered, almost proudly.

"Hawkins Lab as in the same Hawkins Lab that my mum works at?"

Dustin's eyes widened and I waved it off. "She got off her shift at 5:00. I'm not worried." Except I was. What if she hadn't left yet? And what about all of the rest of the people in the lab? Even more pressing: why did my mum never tell me this was her actual job? "Nurse" my ass.

"Oh, Steve, I wanted to ask you what the hell I did on Wednesday that fucked me up so bad?" I asked, turning to him.

"Do you really wanna know?"

"I do," I said, joined with a few of the kids who I glared at. "I mean, I know I drank a lot, but..."

"Yeah, you did a line of coke, too. I honestly thought you were going to die so I made you come with me to the bathroom and we sat there on the floor until you threw up. A lot."

"Holy shit, you did cocaine?" Dustin yelled.

"Uhhhh," I replied guiltily. "I've done it once before but I don't remember doing it this time. Jesus Christ, that must've been why the hangover was so bad."

"Well, yeah, that and the entire tequila bottle you drank and the 49 second keg stand," Steve added. The kids stopped what they were doing and stared at me wide-eyed.

Mike Wheeler spoke first. "You...did a...forty-nine second keg stand?"

I pressed my lips into a firm line and glared daggers at Steve. "Thanks, Steve. Embarrassing me in front of our children. I'm a bad parent now."

"Bo, you're officially the coolest fucking person I've ever met and I claim you as a sister now," Max declared with an impressed smile.

"How are you even alive?" Dustin asked with a facial expression that was somewhere between impressed and bewildered.

"Kid, I've been asking myself that for years," I replied.

We continued our journey towards the Lab—it was all the boys' idea, Max and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. We were nearing an opening in the forest, most likely around the road that entered the lab.

"Who's there?" I heard a familiar voice yell from the clearing.

"We come in peace!" I yelled back childishly, earning a glare from some of the kids. I jogged up to the front of our group where Steve was and we met our company.

"Steve?!" Jonathan and Nancy said, clearly in shock. "Oh, my God, Bo, too? What the hell?

"Nancy?" Steve replied.

"Jonathan," Dustin piped in, sounding relieved.

"What are you doing here?" Nancy asked our group collectively, but I figured it was more towards Steve than anyone else. We all congregated in the middle of the grass to discuss this issue that apparently everyone here knew about.

"What are you doing here?" Steve countered, talking with his hands making the flashlight shine every which way.

"We're looking for Mike and Will."

"They're not in there," Dustin assumed, referring to the lab, "Are they?"

"We're not s-sure," Nancy replied hesitantly.